Tushar Mangl Media

It was raining heavily Saturday morning and I wondered how would I reach Strikers, the venue for the WordUp! even organized by IndiBlogger, BigRock and ,me. But soon, the rain slowed down and I was able to reach the venue which was packed by the time I reached. I was late but just in time to listen to the first main speaker of the day, KV Sridhar a.k.a. Pops. His session was informative and highly intelligent. This one was followed by a session by Lakshnipathy Bhat on Blogs&Brands: A Love Hate Story.  Nandita Iyer, a food blogger from Bangalore came up with the session titled -  Blogging and Beyond Next was Rachit Hirani - Content is King. Rachit is into writing about automobiles and stuff.  Still the rules of content remain same across After which snacks and a light lunch was served along with beer and juice. This was a time to chat up and meet with blogger acquaintances new and old.  Next up was Kiran Manral  with Confessions of a Reformed Blogger....

WordUp! 2015 at Gurgaon, on 11 July was a spectacular event. A cool relaxing atmosphere, an array of talented speakers and of course great food made it to an event that will be remembered for long. But all those details in my next post. This one is about that one brief incident, which I wish I would never have witnessed in between a group of creative individuals. So this stand up comedian comes up on stage to tell us some jokes. His name is Manik Mahna. He sounded okay, maybe some better jokes would come later. But just few minutes into his act this couple gets very upset. You know how these stand up comedians are. Making jokes about women, people, audiences etc. The idea is to chill but this couple heats up. The guy was telling lady jokes like, "I was with my girlfriend, I wanted to tell her best of luck but she was a buxom beauty, so by mistake he said 'breast of luck'. This upset the couple, who were not et all pleased by such jokes. They shouted and everything an...

So Greece has finally taken the plunge. It went into default. Of course there is a referendum waiting to happen. So 5 days after it was supposed to pay its creditors, Greece will do a referendum. As if for past months, creditors and borrowers were just enjoying paid vacation hopping from one meeting to another. Really, if the Greeks wanted a referendum they should have done it and over with it by now. And therein lies the arrogance and brashness of new age borrowers. Playing the victim card and funding the media's craving for the underdog story. You can see it across the globe. The big businesses in the United States being bailed out by their government, the sovereign defaults. So many people and businesses willingly wanting to go bankrupt as to show creditors who the king in the transaction is. Greece is just a symbol. In India take a closer look at our state-owned power companies. Thousands of crores of debt is what they have raked in to supply power to their people. Bu...

Its such a nice hot weather with cool winds blowing all round. It creates a mood for yearning, you are yearning for the rain, for the heat to subside, the dust to settle. It pushes you into a mood of nostalgia.  It happens, right? The other day, in office someone tuned up the Aaj Tak channel which was showing 40 year anniversary special for the emergency. I just watched it for a few minutes and wondered if it even matters today. Its relevance is all lost in history books for young kids to mug up the notes on the same and pass their exams. I soon got over it, but yesterday I found some very old songs that I used to hear all the time ( Summer of 69, The Desert Rose, Through the Monsoon etc). It bought back more memories.Again, you move on, pour yet another glass of scotch whiskey and pick up your kindle. Only, the book that I got hooked to was The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky. It's the kind of growing up story, you read and it just tumbles and bumbles something in...

What's the deal with driving? As in, why people riding wheels? I was wondering about it today, on a long drive in this stuffy humid weather. I saw around me, so many people enjoying driving. The guy on his yamaha who zipped past me as if he was racing an airplane,  that woman driving the honda city with one hand on the car horn and other on her mobile and so many others. We all know of someone who is crazy about driving cars, bikes and even planes. They just want to ride the thing. What do we get out of it? Are we looking for a release? Are we trying to find some meaning in the maddening traffic? Or are roaming aimless like our ancestors used to do on chariots and horses sets some order in our random life? Look around you, how many people close to you would say no to a long drive if time permits? Even if some people don't enjoy driving much, they love being the part of the process, riding pillion to a scooter or a passenger on a train. At times I feel its about a feeling of...

You meet a guy at work. He is totally opposite of you. You know you could never be friends. But you develop a relationship of respect and acquaintanceship. You never save his number in your phone. He tells you about his life. His parents who live down south and have got him a house in Delhi to live. You don't tease him about his 9-year-old relationship with a girl he met at school and wanted to marry. But he tells you all about it. Your respect for him goes up a notch, after hearing about his love for this girl and his future plans with her. And one day a mutual friend informs you on WhatsApp that the guy is dead. Killed in an accident. Life so young gone. Saddens me. Disturbs me. But all good things end one day. Don't they? Some sooner than later.

Touted as one of the biggest bank deposit mobilization schemes in recent times, what is Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna? Nothing. Yes, its just a Prime Minister asking banks to do their jobs, which is all being camouflaged in a PR stunt. Banks in India are notorious for their anti customer behaviour especially if they have less money. Such people are just wasting their time. They are not valuable clients with promises of good diwali gifts. In 1970s all banks in India were nationalised by government for reasons best known to people of those times. But one of the reasons of course was to make banks work for politicians and big businesses. Banks did as masters in Delhi told them and this culture still remains. Customer service is least of priority of any bank.  So if they did have some soft corner for their customers, it would have been easy for people to open bank accounts. And we wouldn't have a Prime Minister, lending the title of his post to a scheme to increase bank accounts. ...

Mrs Majumdar dreads big cities. Its been three years since she came to Gurgaon from her home in a tiny hamlet of Madhya Pradesh.  She was not very enthusiastic about but after death of her husband, it made sense to shift with her only son, Rakesh who has a job here. But as her son  and daughter in law are at work, she feels helpless at times, especially when one time she needed a plumber to fix the kitchen faucet and she couldn't find one. Rakesh had called in someone and all the haggling over price had her mentally drained. Reema is a recent divorcee and she is loving her new found independence. She has moved in recently into a new flat with her daughter and is busy furnishing the new house. But sometimes she feels she could just hire a driver for a day or two, especially when she has to go over to her mother's sister's house in Noida. She likes going their for the change and longing for family but driving through is tough for her at times. Mr Pathak has a house in Gu...

Its been years since I started blogging and joined IndiBlogger but until today I never got a chance to attend the IndiBlogger meet  a much awaited event for bloggers. I remember, at the very beginning of setting up the blog network, Renie had worked on ideas of meets and they have all been a success. Today, I finally got a chance to attend a meet held alongside the launch of Asus Zenfone2, the world's first smartfone with a 4 GB RAM.The venue was the amazingly designed Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon. In it's auditorium the launch of the Asus Zenfone was organized with Bollywood actor Said Ali Khan making a special appearance. Aditi Singh Sharma opened up the show with melodious songs. Asus CEO Jerry Shen launched the new phone  with 'Incredible Comes to India'. This was followed up by top executives from Asus and Intel highlighting features and functions of the new phone. Oh yes, it really sounds like a great phone.  Especially the pictures Robert Jahns a renowned pho...

 You would say, it’s so simple. It is so routine and so routine. But for her it is a special story, a story of magic. That changed her life. Malati was born into a simple middle class family. There was just ever enough for her and her three siblings to eat and wear. This irked her to no end. Why  couldn't they have fancy clothes and the latest cell phones? She always pestered her mother with these questions. Every time Malati would see her closest friend Swati in new clothes always being driven in chauffeur driven cars her heart would burn with envy. All her friends in the colony and even in school seemed to have more money than her. Now she wanted a new mobile. She was using an old handset passed on by her father to her mother to her elder brother. She hated it for it was used and old. She had asked for a brand new mobile phone. Her mother always dismissed her request with a shrug. It was if to her this was just a passing phase. She did not understand how important it ...

By virtue of their operational plans, the DMRC or Delhi Metro Rail Corporation people make sure that the metro trains are always full. They increase time interval between trains or decrease coaches in trains so that even during off hours you get the feel of tightly filled metro train. On one such journey which was a long route from Gurgaon on yellow line to GTB Nagar on the same line I saw her. Of course I recognized her. Though I had been standing on the platform since some time, I can swear I never saw her there.It was only when the jostling crowd was swallowing us in the very packed coach I saw her. Would it have made any difference if I had seen her before? Well it had been four years since we last spoke. Or was it five? Distant time seems so abstract so lost. My first reaction would have been to scurry away. But the train was packed and the way to the next coach was where she was standing. I looked the other way and was suddenly conscious of two eyes following me. So, she had...